Fully automated bank teller systems and self-service fuel dispensing systems have been developed in which a credit card or a specially prepared card document is inserted into a card reader. The selected data on the card then is either locally or remotely processed by a computer for verification of the card identity and various other transactions or routines which may be effected through the use of the card. Such automated systems, both for banking and fuel dispensing systems, may be operated either off-line or in conjunction with a centrally located on-line computer. Various advantages and disadvantages are present with either of these two general types of operation.
Typical systems which employ customer-carried cards for enabling the performance of transactions by such systems are disclosed in the patents to Voss, U.S. Pat. No. 3,845,277, issued Oct. 29, 1974, for a banking system, and the patents to VanNess, number 4,085,313, issued Apr. 18, 1978, and Gentile, U.S. Pat. No. 3,931,497, issued Jan. 6, 1976, for automated fuel dispensing systems. All three of these systems employ a customer-carried portable data entry document or credit card for initiating and controlling operation of the systems with which the card is used.
In conjunction with automatic self-service fuel dispensing systems, the control document or credit card has a variety of data encoded on it. The various characters comprising this data may be encoded by any suitable means, such as magnetic spots, punched holes, or the like.
Unattended automatic self-service fuel dispensing systems primarily are utilized by large trucking companies, large government agencies, or fleet operators of a large number of vehicles, such as taxi cabs. To control the use of such a system and to adequately monitor the quantity and type of fuel dispensed in conjunction with each vehicle and/or driver or user, the cards which are used to control the system carry on them unique identification for each card. This identification may include, depending upon the particular customer requirements, driver and vehicle identity sections, product authorization sections to limit the type of product which may be withdrawn through the use of the card, fuel limit codes and, if a number of different customers use the same fueling station, a master customer identification code. Various other types of data may be encoded on the product authorization credit card or data entry document in accordance with the requirements of the particular system. In almost all systems, however, there is a section on the card which specifically identifies the driver and vehicle; so that the central processing station employed in conjunction with the system can specifically identify the amount of fuel or other products being withdrawn by a particular driver using a specific vehicle. This information is necessary in order to monitor individual operating costs for each vehicle and to monitor individual driver product withdrawal.
In the type of system which is disclosed in the VanNess patent identified above, a single data entry card or credit document is generally sufficient to provide all of the necessary data for each transaction. Some systems, however, require the use of two or more cards with a portion of the data encoded on each different card. The universally accepted size for credit cards which may be readily carried in a billfold or handbag is approximately two and one-eighth inches (21/8") by three and three-eighths inches (33/8"). A number of different types of standard card readers are available on the market, but the limitation on the card size obviously limits the amount of data which can be encoded on any card for use with any particular type of reader. Since many systems tax the maximum amount of information which may be encoded on the card, it is desirable to obtain the maximum amount of useful information from the available encoded area for any given system.
For automatic fuel dispensing systems of the type disclosed in the VanNess patent, it has been found that the provision of sixteen (16) characters is an ideal maximum for encoding the driver identification and vehicle identity information. Whenever a customer for a given system does not require the full sixteen (16) character maximum, the custom has been to encode a "space" character at the end of the driver identification section and before the characters comprising the vehicle identification portion of this identification field. It has been found, however, that for customers having a large number of drivers and a large number of vehicles, all sixteen (16) of these characters need to be used for the identification functions. There then is no room for encoding the "space" character between the sections, and the sections simply run together. The software of the computer then is programmed to determine where the split between the driver identification and the vehicle identification section should occur; and in the subsequent processing of the data, an appropriate space or separation character is inserted at the proper place in the information as it is processed. This, however, requires a custom software implementation with the microprocessors used in the system which is unique to the ratio of characters employed by each particular customer for the driver/vehicle identification.
For example, one customer may have an even split between the sixteen (16) digits, that is, eight (8) digits for driver identification and eight (8) digits for vehicle identification. This requires one set of software for the microcomputer. Another customer, however, may use fourteen (14) digits for driver identification and only two (2) digits for vehicle identification. This requires a different software set. The provision of the various software packages for use with systems supplied to different customers has become one of the more expensive items in any automated fuel dispensing system (or in bank card systems). Consequently, it is desirable to eliminate the necessity for providing custom software or custom hardwired circuitry to handle the processing separation for the different portions of the identification field encoded on the data entry cards or documents used in conjunction with the transaction to be performed.
Of general interest with respect to this problem is the patent to Cash et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,763,467, issued Oct. 2, 1973. The Cash patent is not directed to a system for reading different formats or for automatically formatting a system. Cards used in this system, however, have extra field marks and timing marks along the edge of the card to define the area of the data and to identify the type of data being read on the card. To accomplish this, however, separate read heads are necessary in addition to the various sensors which are employed to sense the data which is encoded on the card.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system for providing format identification, which may be universally used with a single set of software in a microprocessor or with a single hardwired set of system logic, to separate consecutively encoded characters of a fixed length data field into various ratios or sections in accordance with unique identifying indicia or characters encoded on the card to expand the amount of useful identification information which may be encoded on the card and to permit universal operation of a variety of formats with a single processing system.